August: 5 inmates sentenced in Morgan County to be released

There are five inmates sentenced in Morgan County set to be released from prison in August, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections.

Braylen M. Rodriguez, who served the longest sentence among them, spent more than seven years incarcerated for an offense recorded as ‘aggravated discharge of a firearm’.

According to the Illinois Department of Corrections, Illinois spends about $45,828 a year per incarcerated person. In a 2023 study by the Prison Policy Initiative, the state’s incarceration rate was at 433 per 100,000, higher than every industrialized country, except the United States. When compared with its surrounding states, Illinois was the lowest. Kentucky and Missouri have rates over 700 per 100,000.

Another study by the Prison Policy Initiative highlighted that the number of unconvicted individuals was more than two times higher than that of convicted individuals, possibly one of the leading causes of prison population growth in the state.

Most prison inmates are released on some condition of supervised monitoring upon reentering civilian life. This monitoring can last from one year to the rest of someone’s life.